Nine thousand people walk into the Louvre. They are not tourists. They are the people who decide what artificial intelligence becomes — and they have chosen Paris to do it.
01 — Context
The Summit That Took Europe Seriously
There is a version of the story where Europe arrives late. Where it watches, regulates, and eventually adopts what others have already built. RAISE Summit was created, in part, to make that version obsolete.
Founded in February 2023 by Hadrien de Cournon and Henri Delahaye, the summit has grown faster than almost anyone expected — from 7,000 attendees in its 2025 edition to more than 9,000 confirmed for July 2026. That kind of growth does not happen by accident. It happens when the market recognises a gap and someone has the nerve to fill it.
The gap was simple: the AI conversation needed a home that was neither San Francisco’s self-congratulatory echo chamber nor the dense regulatory language of Brussels. It needed Paris — a city with the cultural weight, international reach, and growing technical infrastructure to host a genuinely global dialogue.
“The fastest growing Tech & AI Conference in Europe — and maybe in history.”
— Eric Schmidt, Former CEO & Chairman of Google
The Carrousel du Louvre, set beneath one of the world’s most visited museums, is not an incidental choice. It is a statement. The place where civilisation stores its memory is also, for two days in July 2026, where its future is being argued over.
02 — By the Numbers
What 9,000 Decision-Makers Look Like
The audience profile at RAISE is what separates it from most conferences. With 80% of attendees holding C-level or founder titles, and 40% from Fortune 1000 companies, the room is filled with principals — not observers.
9,000+ Total attendees in 2026 (up from 7,000 in 2025)
80% C-Level executives and company founders
75% International presence across delegations
40% Fortune 1000 companies represented
2,000 Companies with delegations on site
350+ Speakers across all formats
$10M Prize fund for The STAKES startup competition
Buyers make up 40% of the audience — which means that for exhibitors, the calculus is unusually direct. This is not a branding exercise. It is a procurement environment with a stage built around it.
“Amazing people, great vibe — something that Europe needs badly. We need everyone to get together more often and focus on how we can accelerate AI.”
— Mike Mattacola, GM International, CoreWeave
03 — Programming
The 4F Compass: A Framework That Actually Holds
Most conferences have themes. RAISE has a compass. The 4F framework — Foundation, Frontier, Friction, Future — is not a branding device. It is a genuine editorial grid that determines which conversations happen and, more importantly, which ones do not.
Foundation examines the compute, energy, and capital infrastructure on which the AI economy depends. Frontier maps the edge of the research landscape. Friction is the session no one wants to skip: regulation, sovereignty, ethics, and the gap between what AI can do and what society has decided it should. Future asks the uncomfortable questions about timelines, labour, and what comes next.
The result is a programme that treats its audience as adults. Executives who fly to Paris for two days are not looking for inspiration. They are looking for the kind of precise, current intelligence that changes a decision back at the office.
“These events are good for weak ties — meeting new people, thinking about things you overheard. Talking to people afterward is what’s so interesting. RAISE is a fun place to learn something new.”
— Andrew Feldman, CEO & Founder, Cerebras Systems
04 — Speakers
The 2026 Confirmed Roster
The curation principle is consistent across editions: bring the people who are making the decisions, not the people who are describing them.
Mark Cuban — Entrepreneur
Vlad Tenev — Co-Founder & CEO, Robinhood
Pat Gelsinger — GP Playground Global · Former CEO, Intel
Marcelo Claure — CEO, Claure Group · Ex-CEO SoftBank International
Mark Papermaster — CTO & EVP, AMD
Sara Hooker — Co-Founder, Adaption Labs
Anton Osika — Founder & CEO, Lovable
Lin Qiao — Co-Founder & CEO, Fireworks AI
CJ Desai — President & CEO, MongoDB
Arthur Mensch — CEO & Founder, Mistral AI
Jonathan Ross — CEO & Founder, Groq
Clement Delangue — CEO & Founder, Hugging Face
What the list does well is range. Semiconductor architects sit alongside open-source evangelists. Venture-backed founders share a stage with Fortune 500 operators. The friction between those perspectives is not accidental — it is the point.
05 — Programme
Beyond the Main Stage
RAISE Week extends well past the two-day summit. The satellite events operate with distinct audiences and distinct mandates:
- RAISE Summit — The core: 350+ speakers, 9,000+ professionals, July 8–9
- MACHINA Summit — Humanoids, robotics, and industrial autonomy
- The STAKES — World’s largest AI startup competition. $10M+ in prizes
- RAISE Hackathon — Industry-specific solutions. Real business challenges
- CxO Summit — Smaller room. Senior executives. No slides required
- VIP Dinner — Intimate. Strategic. The conversations that matter most
The RAISE Hackathon is claimed to be the largest of its kind globally, focused on industry-specific applications rather than showcase projects. The CxO Summit runs parallel to the main stage for executives who would rather have a smaller room. The VIP Dinner is the event within the event — where the conversations that matter most happen quietly.
06 — Context
Why Paris. Why Now.
The geopolitics of AI infrastructure have shifted considerably since 2023. The question of where AI is built — by whom, under which regulatory regime — is no longer abstract. The rise of Mistral AI as a credible European model lab, France’s sustained political investment in AI policy, and the early success of events like RAISE have collectively altered the perception of Paris as a tech city.
The summit’s press record reflects this shift. Coverage in Semafor, Business Insider, Forbes, CNBC, and Le Point — spanning trade and mainstream press, in both English and French — suggests that what happens at the Carrousel du Louvre in July is no longer a regional story. It is a story about where Europe has decided to stand.
Sponsors like Google Cloud, AWS, NVIDIA, SAP, Snowflake, Oracle, Mistral AI, and Groq are not simply writing cheques. They are making a public positioning decision: that the European AI conversation is worth being visibly part of.